As European leaders make increasingly loud noises about "acceptable norms" in …

The online world is looking nervously at Europe, whose leaders are making ever-louder noises about joining forces to bring "civility" to the Internet. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has led the cheering squad. At the last G8 conference Sarkozy rolled out a digital laundry list of Internet-related problems that need ironing and folding—everything from intellectual property protections to the need for cyber folk "to show tolerance and respect for diversity of language, culture and ideas."

The Internet "is not a parallel universe which is free of rules of law or ethics or of any of the fundamental principles that must govern and do govern the social lives of our democratic states," he warned. He called for "collective responsibility" and "for everyone to be reasonable" in cyberspace.

The specific call for regulation may be new, but France has long attempted to "civilize" the Internet out of things like racism and Nazi ideology by curbing their dissemination.

In fact, the first battle in this war concluded a decade ago. The winner was France; the loser was the then-reigning giant of the Web—Yahoo—along with the notion that the Internet is a "global" place that inherently transcends national boundaries.

Page after page

It was February 2000, and anti-neo-Nazi activist Marc Knobel was sitting in Paris, scouring the Internet for Nazi artifacts being sold online. If you search for Knobel's name today, you'll find surprisingly little about him. He doesn't seem to have a website or a Wikipedia entry. But he has a long set of associations with prestigious anti-Semitism monitoring groups like the Simon Weisenthal Center, and his own organization, J'Accuse—"an association fighting against racism and anti-Semitism on the Internet." (The name "J'Accuse" is a reference to the 19th century "Dreyfus affair" in France, in which a Jewish army officer was falsely accused of espionage.)

In e-mail correspondence with Goldsmith, Knobel explained what he found during that search: "page after page of swastika arm bands, SS daggers, concentration camp photos, and even replicas of the Zyklon B gas canisters." They were all for sale on Yahoo's auction site.

Today many people accept online World War II era Nazi/Stalinist/Japanese empire swag as a given. It's just there, an inescapable part of our dark past. Sure, some people buy it for creepy reasons—e.g., they think that the Nazis or Stalin were great guys. But others seek it out because they are teachers, historians, or documentarians, or were veterans of the struggles against communism or fascism.

Knobel saw none of this ambiguity, it seems. What he did know was that he had French law on his side, specifically Article R645-1 of that nation's criminal code. While making an exception for films, the law fines any person in France who wears or displays:

in public in uniform, insignia or emblem reminiscent of uniforms, badges or emblems which were either worn or displayed by members of an organization declared criminal under Article 9 of the Statute of the International Military Tribunal annexed to the agreement London, 8 August 1945, or by a person convicted by a French or international court of a crime or crimes against humanity [Google translation].

A French anti-racism group filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Yahoo! Inc., claiming the Internet search and directory company hosts illegal auctions of Nazi-related paraphernalia.

The International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism, known by its French initials LICRA, is suing Yahoo! for having Nazi-related items on auction websites that can be accessed in France.

France has strict laws against selling or displaying anything that incites racism. Sales of such Nazi items are against the law.

You have no control

This lawsuit may have impressed some Netizens, but it didn't scare Yahoo, which was at the height of its power. The company stunned the world in 1996 by going public with sixty-eight employees and almost instantly reaching a valuation of $850 million. The firm had ventured "into the sphere of surrealism," in the words of one analyst. Four years later, the Google era had not quite arrived. Yahoo was still the go-to portal for the 'Net. Its stock sold for $475 a share.

A utopian optimism accompanied this boom. "Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind," declared John Perry Barlow in his then-famous Cyberspace Independence Declaration of 1996. "On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather."

And so when Judge Jean-Jacques Gomez of Le Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris sent Yahoo the requisite summons, the company's CEO Jerry Yang issued a statement right out of Barlow's playbook. France "wants to impose a judgment in an area over which it has no control," Yang declared.

A great wave of nay-saying greeted this prosecution. France's laws did not apply to Yahoo, which dwelled in the United States, land of the First Amendment! The rules would be impossible to enforce! How would Yahoo know which viewers came from France? It would hamstring international commerce!

Even writers sympathetic to the notion of government regulation seemed skeptical of its prospects in the digital era. The New York Times economist Paul Krugman loudly counted himself among these worriers. In 2000 he found a connection between P2P file sharing and the proliferation of 'Net-powered overseas tax havens:

What unites these two stories? Both are about how technology is erasing boundaries—the boundaries that we use to define intellectual property, the boundaries that we use to define tax jurisdictions. And in both cases the loss of effective boundaries, though it brings some direct advantages, threatens something important: the ability of creators to profit from their creations, the ability of governments to collect revenue.

"Something serious, and troubling, is happening," Krugman warned, "and I haven't heard any good ideas about what to do about it. "

Healthy and civilized

"French law does not permit racism in writing, on television or on the radio," declared a lawyer sympathetic to Knobel's perspective, "and I see no reason to have an exception for the Internet."

On May 22, 2000, Gomez declared that Yahoo's auction sites were illegal in France. His preliminary decision ordered the company to "take all necessary measures to dissuade and make impossible" visits to them from that country. Yahoo had two months to figure the problem out.

Yahoo insisted that this task was impossible. But the prosecution brought in experts who demonstrated technology capable of identifying content by geographical source. This gear also showed the court that Yahoo had set up a mirror server in Stockholm—well beyond the protections of the US First Amendment. Even more experts piled into the proceeding. They insisted that Yahoo could filter 90 percent of French users from the auctions.

This convinced an already-persuaded Judge Gomez to make the order permanent. Yahoo insisted that it would ignore the decision. But behind the scenes, its executives faced a brick-and-mortar problem. For every day after February 1, 2001 that it refused to comply with the order, it would have to pay France 100,000 francs per day.

"Yahoo executives, who make frequent trips to Europe and who would be subject to legal process there, began to think things through," Wu and Goldsmith note. The company removed all Nazi swag from its auction page. Yahoo "will no longer allow items that are associated with groups which promote or glorify hatred and violence, to be listed on any of Yahoo's commerce properties," the search engine portal declared.

5. If the Internet service provider discovers information which is inconsistent with the law on its website, it will remove it.

Article 10. We Internet access service providers pledge to inspect and monitor information on domestic and foreign websites when it provides access to those sites and refuse access to those websites that disseminate harmful information.

Article 11. We Operators of Internet access venues pledge to use our best efforts to take effective measures to create a healthy and civilized environment for Internet usage and to assist the users, especially the teenagers to use the Internet in a healthy manner.

A "healthy and civilized" environment in China, of course, meant an environment in which Yahoo and Google web searches for phrases like Tienanmen Square and "multiparty elections" produce carefully limited results.

A right to violate French law

Licra v. Yahoo! continued in the United States. In November of 2001, a US District Judge declared that the First Amendment protected Yahoo's right to free expression, and that the company did not have to obey French law.

Two years later, a French court dismissed criminal charges against Yahoo, ruling that, beyond the legality of the auctions in France, Yahoo never attempted to "justify war crimes [or] crimes against humanity."

But in 2006, the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals blocked Yahoo's effort to invalidate the law in the US. "The core of Yahoo's hardship argument may thus be that it has a First Amendment interest in allowing access by users in France," the Ninth observed.

Yet under French criminal law, Internet service providers are forbidden to permit French users to have access to the materials specified in the French court's orders. French users, for their part, are criminally forbidden to obtain such access. In other words, as to the French users, Yahoo! is necessarily arguing that it has a First Amendment right to violate French criminal law and to facilitate the violation of French criminal law by others.

"The extent—indeed the very existence—of such an extraterritorial right under the First Amendment is uncertain," the court concluded. "Further, First Amendment harm may not exist at all, given the possibility that Yahoo has now 'in large measure' complied with the French court's orders through its voluntary actions, unrelated to the orders."

When the US Supreme Court denied judicial review to the matter, the case ended. But far more than the validity of a censorship law had been upheld. The Yahoo/France saga "encapsulates the Internet's transformation from a technology that resists territorial law to one that facilitates its enforcement," Goldsmith and Wu conclude.

Now the big battles are over how much enforcement governments will deploy, not only in their own countries, but across national boundaries. Today the US has no problem pressuring the governments of Canada and New Zealand to toughen up their online intellectual property laws, and the UK is loudly calling for a discussion about the "norms of acceptable behaviour in cyber-space" and "bringing countries together to explore mechanisms for giving such standards real political and diplomatic weight."

In the end, the Internet is only as "global" as we want it to be. We can thank (or blame) France for putting that fact on the digital ground.

Matthew Lasar
Matt writes for Ars Technica about media/technology history, intellectual property, the FCC, or the Internet in general. He teaches United States history and politics at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Emailmatthew.lasar@arstechnica.com//Twitter@matthewlasar

The problem is both wider and narrower than explained in this article.

The "France vs Yahoo" thing is actually more of a private matter: some extremists thought that the law allowed them to sue Yahoo for something that offended them and, for the better or for the worse, the debate has been moved to the territory of extra-territoriality of laws and such. It is an interesting debate to be sure but it's hardly the Internet-shattering thing that seems to be described here.

But it is also far wider: the political establishment of France is in dismay. it might not show up that much outside of the limited sphere of influence but, like in many other part of the world, people's trust in traditional political parties is eroding and fast. This is due in part to the nature current times but also a lot to the influence of new communication methods: controlling the media has, in the past, been an affair of controlling the mass media: newspapers, radio, television. Internet is changing this because there is now a real "peer-to-peer media network" that isn't centrally controllable. And this frightens many people in European's political establishment.

What will came out of it, I don't know, but one thing I'm sure of: the Arabian revolutions have shaken more than just the dictatorship on north Africa and middle east.

the French are acting like nazi Germany so they can prevent the sensitive French from seeing the nazi logo.

Germany and Austria are even more aggressive about trying to hide their Nazi past from the public consciousness.

I really think it's fascinating to get these glimpses into other cultures (as I'm not French). For instance, lots of little towns in France have signs at their entrances informing visitors of when the local Catholic church holds the Mass, but the government also has a ban on external religious displays in schools (see controversies over the khimar & hijab in France).

What this article somewhat misses or misrepresents is the fact that most big internet sites, by and large, complied with American law. Yahoo was willing to put on Nazi souvenirs’ auctions but wouldn’t allow the sale of porn or drugs for instance.

So the French were the first government that had to publicly and internationally act upon these problems. However, much before that, the US was already busy enforcing its laws on the net, it just didn’t show as much. Their actions in latter year emphasize this point.

That being said, it is an interesting article and the question of legislation on the net (IP and others) is certainly one of the biggest question of our time.

France will find itself, one day, without an internet if it keeps going down this path. Eventually, US companies, afraid of France's laws, will simply disconnect any traffic resolution coming from the country.

Perhaps this is for the best. Sarkozy is a hypocrite. Crying for stronger rights while his campaign committee has been caught multiple times for infringement. He, himself, was cause a couple of years ago.

As for the comment about IT departments "playing ball", consider what they're up against. Any asshole can file a lawsuit. Just look at those backed by the DMCA.

Now lather, rinse, and repeat when another company does the same thing.

Small businesses are now doomed because most of these lawsuits are filed by larger corporations.

As explained before the fascist loving politicians and companies are afraid of free internet so it's time to turn it in to AOL experience where they have control over it all. How can you stay in power if people get good information instead of bullshit you are serving them?

Moving towards mercenary military is going to help but even that is not going to be enough once you piss off large enough amount of people.

France can go to hell together with the rest of EU leadership (with few exceptions sitting in the EU parliament everyone else is a corrupt fascist swine worthy of life time jail sentence and little else).

I just finished a WWII history that said that the French operated slave labor camps for ex-Nazi soldiers for a few years after the end of the war. The U.S. did almost the same: ex-Nazi soldiers in West Germany couldn't get food rationing coupons unless they worked for free. The Russians did the slavery thing big-time in East Germany and Eastern Europe.

The U.S. also took all German IP and patent rights, including new inventions after the end of the war. This held back Germany's recovery, since there was not a lot of incentive left.

+1 This. France, you can kiss my ass. Your war on the internet will just be another loss in your long line of losses in every major conflict. Napoleon doesn't count in my book because he was Corsican, not French.

Side note, my grandfather willed the general's luger he took home with him after Omaha/Bulge (don't remember which he got it in) but it was later found that one of their "moving helpers" helped themselves to it. Probably ended up on Yahoo's auction site

Now, not to say what the Nazi's did wasn't horrible, it was, but trying to whitewash history by banning anything related to them only does one thing. It pushes more people to want to be like them. In a "healthy and civilized" culture, you don't have to ban ideas or seeing things like symbols from past atrocities, people will see them and know that they aren't ideals to strive for, but ideals that were proven to be wrong, and can learn from the mistakes of those that allowed them to happen. In 200-300 years, people are going to want to know what Nazi Germany was like, not because they want to be like them, but because they have a healthy interest in history, and if things like those items in the auction are not preserved, they aren't going to have a full picture of what the brainwashing that was done to the German people was like, and the propaganda that was released at the time.

All the French government is doing is trying to force their opinion and their views on others. The internet does not have any need to conform to what France deems is "healthy" or "civilized", as they really don't have either of those concepts mastered.

The U.S. also took all German IP and patent rights, including new inventions after the end of the war. This held back Germany's recovery, since there was not a lot of incentive left.

Interesting! That could explain why such an explosion of different products/services occurred in the US during the baby boomer era from my personal knowledge; does that book you read have an online source?

It is interesting to note that the French government, instead of saying to the French people, that if you download/view/buy this material you will be prosecuted. Instead, they want to restrict the sale of it outright at the source.

This is like saying "The speed limit on this road is 65 mph". In most countries you would be fined if you broke the speed limit. The French government would say to car manufacturers if you allow a car to go over 65mph, we will prosecute you. They are policing the rest of the world and we should not stand for this.

The court was right though. The US Constitution holds no water in France. French law is French law. If Yahoo continued to violate French law, their employees could never set foot on French soil again without being subject to arrest.

Think of it this way, if you personally travel to another country, do you ignore its laws? Do you shit on their Capital steps? If you want your Internet site usable in a certain country, you have to obey its laws. All the tools are available to meet individual country requirements through the Internet. Sure it's a pain. You could just take up farming instead.

I just finished a WWII history that said that the French operated slave labor camps for ex-Nazi soldiers for a few years after the end of the war. The U.S. did almost the same: ex-Nazi soldiers in West Germany couldn't get food rationing coupons unless they worked for free. The Russians did the slavery thing big-time in East Germany and Eastern Europe.The U.S. also took all German IP and patent rights, including new inventions after the end of the war. This held back Germany's recovery, since there was not a lot of incentive left.

To the victor go the spoils!The US partly became the World power because of Germany's aggression in Europe and Japan invading territory in the Pacific. The US also spent $25 Billion in Europe from 1945 to 1951 under various recovery programs, like the Marshall Plan. This money, plus hard, work kick-started the economies of war-torn Europe.The French were a minor ally but wanted their "fair share" of the allied victory. The French are still bitter about the British destroying their fleet in Africa. The "French complex" details a list of insecurities that nation has to this day. This list includes losing colonies, losing to the Germany Army in 1940 in 6 weeks, high unemployment, etc etc.Why would you pay people to rebuild the houses you had to blow up because they were asshole aggressors?

It's amazing how much various countries are being total Nazis about Nazis.

So on the one hand, we have people who actually, physically murder unarmed civilians in an attempt to exterminate their race. On the other hand, we have people who say you can't sell mugs with swastikas on them. Yeah, those are the same. -_-

Now, not to say what the Nazi's did wasn't horrible, it was, but trying to whitewash history by banning anything related to them only does one thing. It pushes more people to want to be like them. (...) All the French government is doing is trying to force their opinion and their views on others. The internet does not have any need to conform to what France deems is "healthy" or "civilized", as they really don't have either of those concepts mastered.

People seem to misunderstand this law to quite a large extent. It does not prevent people from talking or discussing either Nazi ideology or Nazi history it prevents them from displaying Nazi symbols in public and basically anything that tries to make the Nazi popular again.

That being said, when it comes to forcing their opinions on others, while the French may not be last, they certainly aren’t alone which doesn’t make me very confident in the future…

The court was right though. The US Constitution holds no water in France. French law is French law. If Yahoo continued to violate French law, their employees could never set foot on French soil again without being subject to arrest.

Think of it this way, if you personally travel to another country, do you ignore its laws? Do you shit on their Capital steps? If you want your Internet site usable in a certain country, you have to obey its laws. All the tools are available to meet individual country requirements through the Internet. Sure it's a pain. You could just take up farming instead.

Its not about forcing the US Constitution on France. Its about keeping retarded French law from wrecking a free internet, which was started in the US. The US has the most freedom when it comes to speech protection against government entities. And no, the option is not to just do what France wants. It should be a declaration of war to threaten US citizens with imprisonment for fighting internet tyranny. Shut off all servers to France! If they arrest any US citizens representing Yahoo, arrest French citizens. Fuck those frog eaters!

It's amazing how much various countries are being total Nazis about Nazis.

So on the one hand, we have people who actually, physically murder unarmed civilians in an attempt to exterminate their race. On the other hand, we have people who say you can't sell mugs with swastikas on them. Yeah, those are the same. -_-

While attempting to wipe out major classes of people, the Nazis also tried to destroy free thought, speech, and actions. So... actually it is partly the same.Besides, I would say its a play on words anyway.

Now, not to say what the Nazi's did wasn't horrible, it was, but trying to whitewash history by banning anything related to them only does one thing. It pushes more people to want to be like them. (...) All the French government is doing is trying to force their opinion and their views on others. The internet does not have any need to conform to what France deems is "healthy" or "civilized", as they really don't have either of those concepts mastered.

People seem to misunderstand this law to quite a large extent. It does not prevent people from talking or discussing either Nazi ideology or Nazi history it prevents them from displaying Nazi symbols in public and basically anything that tries to make the Nazi popular again. That being said, when it comes to forcing their opinions on others, while the French may not be last, they certainly aren’t alone which doesn’t make me very confident in the future…

People speaking here do understand the law. It forces denial mentality laws on others.That denial mentality doesnt work. These knuckleheads have had 65 years to try and prevent Nazi ideology from becoming popular or whatever. There are neo-Nazis. Nazi stuff is sold. People talk about Nazi history. Because people in power are tools, you have to fight back for your freedoms or you will lose them.

So on the one hand, we have people who actually, physically murder unarmed civilians in an attempt to exterminate their race. On the other hand, we have people who say you can't sell mugs with swastikas on them. Yeah, those are the same. -_-

Thank you for this. It never ceases to amaze me that the regime that killed millions in the name of conquest and ethnic cleansing can be equated to anything a person doesn't like. What the hell is wrong with you people?

The court was right though. The US Constitution holds no water in France. French law is French law. If Yahoo continued to violate French law, their employees could never set foot on French soil again without being subject to arrest.

Think of it this way, if you personally travel to another country, do you ignore its laws? Do you shit on their Capital steps? If you want your Internet site usable in a certain country, you have to obey its laws. All the tools are available to meet individual country requirements through the Internet. Sure it's a pain. You could just take up farming instead.

You can only break a countries laws within that country, which Yahoo didn't do, and France's laws are incredibly stupid anyway and should NOT be respected (perhaps the guillotines ought to be readied again).

Quote:

So on the one hand, we have people who actually, physically murder unarmed civilians in an attempt to exterminate their race. On the other hand, we have people who say you can't sell mugs with swastikas on them. Yeah, those are the same. -_-

They aren't on the same scale, but both are repressive regimes that lack respect for the most fundamental of rights.

Germany and Austria are even more aggressive about trying to hide their Nazi past from the public consciousness.

While I can't speak about Austria I *can* speak for Germany. And you couldn't be more wrong.Here are example covers of a major German weekly:http://blogs.taz.de/hitlerblog/2007/06/ ... erspiegel/ (text is in Germany, obviously).Two major, international, movie hits out of Germany were Nazi related: Das Boot, Downfall.Every year, some sort of Hitler documentary is on TV, usually our NPR equivalent, the topics becoming ever more ridiculous since everything's been covered.The most remembered media scandal was about a major German weekly (Stern) being scammed by a forger--who created forged Hitler diaries.So, no, we aren't hiding our past.

You are kind of hiding from the Nazi past.Example is that you cannot display swaztikas. You cannot belong to a neo-Nazi organization, you cannot own Nazi paraphernalia unless its at a museum. Denialism doesn't work. Nazism was bad, teach people why its bad, and remember that its history.

What I don't get is the concept of "war crimes" or "crimes against humanity," what the hell does that even mean? All these rules are starting to annoy me. Can't people just live and let live? Hypothetically: Who decided that the Nazis are evil? If they had won, freedom would be evil. It's just a matter of perspective/timing. I'm not sympathizing with the Nazis, just pointing something out. Aside from cuisine (and a lot of it is questionable) what good has come from France? I can't think of anything of note, definitely nothing since WWII. The Allies should have let Germany keep 'em. In conclusion: Go LulzSec, Go!!

Sarko can jam a bastard in it, he should go back to what he knows, like kicking out gypsies and turning away refugees at the border. They can try all they want but the internet will never be "civilized". Laws regarding speech vary so wildly between countries that its not plausible to apply blanket regulations regarding it to the web. People would just use proxies anyway.

I've said it once, I've said it again. If France has such a problem with the internet, then I think companies of the internet should take France out of the equation. If they are so worried about what they can be exposed to, then let's forcibly remove all exposure so they can shut up about it.

Yahoo should have stayed out of France. It's a nation of blowhards who think that the internet is some sort of exploitable entity because their own laws tell them it is. If we just take away their internet, they should have nothing to complain about until they realize that the "safe" internet that they want essentially amounts to China's Great Firewall.

While I agree with the general consensus thatt Sarkozy is a douche, and I do not support private censorship based on copyrights, I do support the ban on nazi mugs. Selling nazi mugs has nothing to do with teaching history. It's all about banalizing the nazis. It does not sound right in my books. This censorship is good but should not be used to justify censorship based on IP.

"The extent—indeed the very existence—of such an extraterritorial right under the First Amendment is uncertain," the court concluded.

I'm no constitutional scholar, but my understanding is that the constitution recognizes natural rights rather than granting them as the benevolence of the government. The right to free speech is not "granted" by the government, it is recognized as existing "despite" the government.

If that is the case, the court should hold that a citizen of the US can say whatever the hell they want and the French can take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut.